A New Theory of Heredity, 85 



variation and adaptation through the male element; and 

 the ovum is the essential, the male cell the secondary, 

 factor in heredity. 



The various hypotheses which we have noticed have 

 little in common, and it is therefore interesting to note 

 that they all present points of resemblance to the one 

 which is here advanced, and that this alone has features 

 in common with them all. 



Like Aristotle and the ancients, we must believe that 

 the two reproductive elements play widely different parts. 

 Like Bonnet and Haller, we see that the structure of 

 the adult is latent in the egg. 



The mode of origin and transmission of the gemmules 

 is essentially like Darwin's conception, and we must 

 acknowledge that Buffon's view of the part played by his 

 organic molecules was very near the truth. 



The analogy upon which Haeckel lays so much stress 

 is readily explicable by our theory, for since each stage 

 in the evolution of the species has been impressed by 

 gemmules upon the egg, it is, in truth, only natural that 

 the developing organism should mirror the ancestral his- 

 tory of its species; arid, finally, onr view of the origin 

 of the properties of the ovarian egg is identical with that 

 given by Jager in his explanation of reversion. 



An honest attempt to reason from the phenomena of 

 nature can hardly fail to result in the discovery of some 

 little truth, and I think we may hope that all these 

 points of agreement .with hypotheses which are mani- 

 festly inadequate can only be due to the presence in 

 them all of some portion of the true light of nature. 



Mivart, who believes with Darwin that natural selec- 

 tion has been a great but not the exclusive means through 

 which organisms have been modified, has attempted in 

 Chapter xi. of his book on the Genesis of Species to 



